1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is in telecommunications, particularly broadcast message transmission of a plurality of messages.
2. Related Art
Certain organizations, for example school districts and youth sports leagues, frequently need to send a single message to a plurality of receivers. Such messages may include emergency notices, for example weather related problems like hurricanes. Certain other messages may be non-emergencies but time sensitive nonetheless, such as a scheduling change for a little league game. In order to send such broadcast messages, products and services have been developed for the relevant organizations, such as those offered by the applicant herein, Groupcast LLC.
Some broadcast messaging services send telephone messages in the form of a voicemail through the traditional publicly switched telephone network (“PSTN”). Other services may offer voicemail services through the voice over internet protocol (“VOIP”). Both access the cellular telephone network. In any case, certain hardware structures and standardized protocols must be used and are unavoidable to broadcast messages at all. Furthermore, the limitations and requirements of the telecommunications infrastructure, whether the publicly switched network or the Internet, must be addressed in order to achieve acceptable or advantageous success rates for message deliveries and acceptable or advantageous speed in delivering them.
One of the infrastructure limitations in broadcast messaging is that the message being broadcast is a prerecorded voicemail message that is being delivered by a computer. When the number being called is answered by voicemail system such as on cellular telephones, the outgoing greeting message is also being executed by a computer system. If the broadcast messaging system is programmed to begin playing its broadcast message when the number being called picks up, each call received by a voicemail service will be cut off by the amount of time it takes for the receiving voicemail service to play its outgoing greeting. If the system sending the broadcast message is programmed to wait for the outgoing message to be silent, the broadcast message will begin at the pause that voicemail outgoing greetings use to receive instructions. At this circumstance, the broadcast message will also be cut off by subsequent outgoing greetings if no instructional code is entered. Even in the event that the broadcast message could be programmed to wait for the complete conclusion of the outgoing voicemail greeting, costs increase due to the time needed to listen to the outgoing voicemail greeting and time is wasted that could otherwise be used for completing the call and moving on to the next call.